One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.

H.L. (Henry Lewis) Mencken (1880-1956), U.S. journalist, critic. Originally published in A Book of Prefaces (1916). The Vintage Mencken, ch. 7, p. 54, ed. Alistair Cooke, Vintage (1956).
In an essay on Theodore Dreiser.